Jericho

[rm]

When I was a kid and The Day After aired on TV, they sent us home with notes for our parents about how we were all supposed to watch it and discuss it with our families. I remember Elyse had really bad nightmares from it and was finally more afraid of something than math.

Personally, I don't remember watching it, and maybe we didn't. But I do remember reading lots of books about nuclear war -- from age-inappropriate things like Hiroshima to things for children, like Z for Zacharias. Also, 1,001 Cranes; that was why I learnt origami, but could never master that troublesome figure. After school with my friends sometimes we would talk about our dreams. When I dream I have radiation poisoning, my fingers go numb first.

This is what we were afraid of in the 80s, and while it was handed down to us from the adults in our lives, it was also a secret land dwelled in only by children. We were small and clever and if a nuclear war came, all the adults would die and then we'd be the adults and because we weren't as good at certain things as adults -- like following rules, we would do what was necessary to survive. Sure, growing up was going to suck, but at least if nuclear war came we wouldn't have to wait and wait. Our school cafeteria was also a nuclear fallout shelter -- hardly unusual, I think pretty much any basement is, I don't really know, but ours had a big sign at the bottom of the stairs to it, so every day when I'd pay fifty cents for a Hawaian Punch, I'd stand under that sign and think about how long the sodas would last.

Tonight I caught the last fifteen minutes of Jericho, which was pretty much entirely of the mold of my childhood and its nuclear imagination. For a long time, I just loved things like this. I do love a good disaster movie -- meteors striking the earth, stuff like that. This may even be my gateway drug on the Harry Potter front -- bring on the war! and all that.

Jericho, though, what I saw of it, to my surprise, made me angry. I guess maybe because I watched people get afraid this time, or maybe because the show wants us to be, or hopes we are enough to watch it -- I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm older and a whole lot of stuff that seemed like it could be an adventure when I was a kid, I'm pretty sure wouldn't be now. Or maybe I know I'm just not quite small enough to be the perfect post-nuclear disaster theif and scavenger anymore. I don't know, but it was strange, and so entirely a reaction of being my very particular age.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit over a decade older than you are and everything you said about both your childhood and today resonated perfectly with me, which is why I avoided that show.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

For me, part of it is that I'm older and not as strong as I was when I was one of those kids who knew where all the nuke shelters were just in case. I'm too small to hide and wait out the scary adult scavengers, and I'm too medically needy to survive well. But I'm also much more aware of how difficult it would be to rebuild after such a disaster. With the Earth's natural resources stripped already, starting civilization over would be close to impossible. And I'm not strong enough in spirit these days to face that much disaster without feeling despair.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

This is a lot my experience, too. I'd already decided to skip Jericho. :p My childhood was devoured by that threat. I lived 10 seconds from certain death, near target site #9 for North America, Niagara Falls with all the power plants. One night, in a fierce rain, the air raid sirens shorted out and howled all night. The power was out, so no radios. It was terrifying. Every lightning flash could have been a nuclear blast.

[anathemadevice.livejournal.com]

Maybe you're also old enough now to realize that, in all likelihood, New York would have been leveled in any such exchange.

and the rest of the country, after losing New York, just doesn't seem worth saving.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I read a lot of creepy and odd young adult novels about children surviving nuclear wars in little shelters and scavenging, and dealing with their friends dying.

[affreca.livejournal.com]

I'm just that little bit younger, I don't remember The Day After coming out. It has always been a bit of a joke for me (I live in Lawrence, KS). But I read early, and enjoyed post apocolyptic books and movies. So I associate it with my early childhood.

I doubt I would be afraid, as us Kansans are having a great time mocking the geographical inaccuracies (though I hear they do a better job than Smallville). I just don't like that any more.

[fortysevenbteg.livejournal.com]

'The Day After' and 'Threads' scared the absolute shit out of me proper for a long long time. Far beyond merely making me aware, it fueled my personal galaxy of paranoia up until I hit high school.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

My father was treated for a benign throat tumor with radiation when I was a child; I still remember the blue targeting marks on his neck, and being afraid to hug him, in case it gave me cancer.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Yeah ... few people know about Threads. It makes " The Day After " look like a CBS holiday special.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Back in those days i made a point of collecting all of the nuclear war movies - even the ones intended to be funny ( Radioactive dreams ) , and the ones that were kinda surprising ( A Boy and his Dog ).

The day after really spooked me. When it came out I was living near an air force base, which blew off the air raid siren at noon every day. Needless to say when it happened the next day I was a bit more than a bit spooked.

Years later I saw " Threads " which was much more than The day After, it was more clinical at first, then it became just far and beyond. It's almost like it shifted gears halfway through.

In many ways I equate the whole terrorisim bit that we are living with now to the nuclear war bit we lived with in the 80's.

All this aside, I have not seen Jericho. I'm going to go look for it.

[magicwoman.livejournal.com]

You were a very cute little girl (I assume that's you in the icon).

I remember schools trying scare school kids with "end of days" type of propoganda. I remember thinking "well bring it on" - how much scarier could it be than going home?

I don't think that so much these days, but I would like to think I have enough of a survivor instinct (presupposing that I survived a catastrophy) to not act like the people in the show "Jericho."

Susan